It is almost never good to judge a situation or institute a policy based on the actions of one person, unless the actions are representative of a larger group.
When violence is committed by one individual, we should certainly never portray that on an entire group of people. For example, when a Bernie Sanders supporter tried to kill members of Congress at a baseball game, it wasn’t appropriate to label all Bernie Sanders supporters as murderers or nutcases.
The fact that Charlie Kirk was assassinated, seemingly by a lone person, does not tell us anything by itself. It is a tragic event where one person took the life of another.
The loss of Charlie Kirk is significant in many ways, but perhaps the biggest story is the reaction to it. I experienced it in my own world. I saw more than one of my Facebook “friends” saying things that I found disturbing.
I try to put myself in the position of others. What if Joe Biden had died while he was president at the height of the evil vaccine mandates? I certainly wouldn’t have shed a tear over it, but I also don’t think I would have taken to Facebook and celebrated the moment.
It is almost never a good idea to celebrate and act gleeful over the death of another human being. Even if the person is evil, you should be careful about celebrating too much. You may turn into what you claim to hate.
Of course, Charlie Kirk wasn’t even a politician. So even if he had views that someone found repugnant, it’s not like he had the power to force them on anyone.
Conspiracy Theories
There are certainly bizarre things about this story, but I can’t claim to know that it was anything more than the single person who has been accused.
There are theories out there that it could have been the Israeli government or U.S. intelligence behind the assassination. Netanyahu had a somewhat bizarre response when asked about the allegations, but this doesn’t mean he had anything to do with it.
If we ever get any kind of solid evidence that the Israeli state was behind the killing of Charlie Kirk, it might open the eyes of a lot conservatives out there. Personally, it would do nothing to change my views because I already believe that the Israeli state (with U.S. government weapons and funding) has intentionally killed tens of thousands of innocent people in Gaza over the last 2 years, so it would be no surprise if they killed one person in America.
Several people have stated that Charlie Kirk had been offered a large amount of money for his organization to tow the pro-Israel narrative. He was also supposedly threatened by the pro-Israel lobby at a meeting in the Hamptons.
We can’t be certain that all of this is true and accurate, but at the very least it seems that Kirk’s views on Israel had evolved. At a summer event hosted by his organization (TPUSA), he had Tucker Carlson there, who has become less shy in criticizing the Israeli state. Kirk also had Dave Smith there to debate the topic of Israel, who has been a harsh critic of the actions of the Israeli state over the last 2 years.
Just the fact that Charlie Kirk had Dave Smith speaking at his event is a big sign of Kirk’s change in attitude, or at least his open-mindedness on the topic.
In a recent episode of his show, Dave actually read some text messages from Charlie Kirk. One interesting thing is that Charlie Kirk saw the debate on Joe Rogan’s show between Douglas Murray and Dave Smith. Kirk said that even though he comes more from the pro-Israel side, he didn’t really disagree with much of what Dave had to say.
In other words, Charlie Kirk was no Ben Shapiro.
And speaking of Ben Shapiro, it is creepy the way he tries to use Kirk’s death and pretend that Kirk would have wanted us all to unconditionally support Israel.
Cancel Culture
I have never been completely comfortable with the term cancel culture, and it has become clearer why. I have never thought that a person should never be fired from a job for saying something.
There is certainly nuance here. We have seen some ridiculous stories about people getting fired from their job over a dumb and harmless comment. Sometimes the comments are even accurate but they are seen as politically incorrect.
On the other hand, it would be crazy to take a position that someone should never be fired for what they say or write in public. If you are celebrating violence, you can see where a company might not want to associate with that. That is especially true if the person is doing it while representing the company in some way.
Jimmy Kimmel
When Jimmy Kimmel said that MAGA people are distraught over one of their own murdering Charlie Kirk, Kimmel said it on his show on ABC. It is not surprising that ABC did not want to defend this inaccurate and obnoxious comment, especially when Kimmel already had low ratings.
I actually thought it was far worse what Kimmel said a few years back when he said that the non-vaccinated people should be denied entry into hospitals and left to die. This wasn’t a joke, and it wasn’t funny. Kimmel was a salesman for the evil establishment. Kimmel and Colbert were both shills for the vaccine regime.
ABC has suspended Kimmel. Maybe he has been fired, but we don’t know for sure if it is permanent.
Of course, the idiotic Trump administration has to ruin this great victory by making threats of investigation against ABC. This just provided cover for ABC to get rid of Kimmel, and it gave the left an excuse to holler about Trump.
To be clear, it is absolutely wrong for the government to threaten a company with investigation or to threaten pulling their license if the company doesn’t fire someone because of something they said. It was just as wrong when the Biden people were threatening social media companies if they didn’t censor people who were critical (giving accurate information) about COVID lockdowns and vaccines.
Kimmel’s ratings were already in the toilet. ABC could easily let him go after the Trump team made threats. It would have been a harder decision if the Trump team had kept their mouths shut and let it play out from public pressure.
Other Lessons
It seems that this has brought out the true colors in many people.
Pam Bondi has now fully exposed herself as an opponent of liberty and free speech.
Parts of the hardcore left have shown themselves as supporting violence.
There are good parts too. I have seen some on the left who have been respectful and have even had some genuine praise for some of the things Charlie Kirk stood for.
Another positive thing is that we, so far, have seen little violence in response to what happened. Unlike 2020, there haven’t been riots in the streets.
There are certainly cultural issues where I had disagreements with Charlie Kirk. There are some things he said that I wouldn’t have said or I would have said differently. But he also had some really good things to say. His biggest thing was that he stood for free speech and open debate.
Even though almost everyone knows of him now, most people who don’t pay attention to politics didn’t know much about Charlie Kirk, if anything at all. Some have now heard the more controversial things he had to say, but some have also seen him from when he was engaging in open dialogue with those who disagree with him.
Charlie Kirk was working through some issues in his own mind on foreign policy, but he was generally on the better side of MAGA (the less interventionist side).
If there is one thing we should take away from Charlie Kirk, it is that we should strive to have an open dialogue with those who disagree with us, as long as they are willing to do so civilly.